Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

Gladwell used Aristotle’s techniques of rhetoric, by appealing to ethos, pathos, and logos successfully to further persuade his audience of his argument. First, Gladwell established his character by displaying himself as an intellectual, honest, and of good intentions through his writing style and word choice. Secondly, Gladwell masterfully used pathos to emotionally influenced his audience from their interests and concerns about success to make his argument appeal to his specific audience. Third, Gladwell utilized logos to make his argument strong without emotional and trustworthy factors interfering, and his case stood on its own. Gladwell also mentioned problems and his offered solutions which would alter his thesis of success through a hockey example that is trying to fix the age gap concerning development, “We could set up two or even three hockey leagues, divided up by month of birth. Let the players develop on separate tracks and then pick all-star teams,” (33). As a society, we must change the pattern of success and prove Gladwell’s thesis wrong; we can help one another to be the community required so everyone can prosper and create a sense of equity. Through Gladwell’s efficient use of establishing an image to

Outliers is Malcolm Gladwell 's examination of what makes some people excessively more successful than others. These "outliers," as he calls them, are commonly thought to possess talent and intelligence far above that of the average person, but he challenges this popular belief by looking at the background of some notable outliers.

Many people view success as merely hard work; dedicating oneself to something completely. Although the recipe for success involves this type of commitment, Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, opened up a new perspective. Although Gladwell states, “....If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” (Gladwell 151), he adds that many other things affect one’s ability to succeed. In society today, individuals tend to look at the big prize instead of the path that led them to it. It was very interesting because many stories about success involve time and perseverance, but rarely luck. Outliers gave a refreshing and unique way of looking at how goals are really reached. While the book was in the 3rd person point of view, it was very entertaining because with every chapter came another story that contributed to Gladwell’s overall idea. Throughout the book, Gladwell purposely went into explicit detail to push readers to further visualize and picture themselves in the shoes of the “outliers”. His friendly tone and his narration of anecdotes help captivate the reader. Although his style of writing feels slightly informal, Gladwell is very sincere and wants the readers to understand the misperception of success. In doing so, Gladwell separated the book into two parts; Opportunity and Legacy. By dividing the book into two parts he gives the readers two viewpoints to the overall idea of success and links them

In Outliers, Gladwell’s main argument or claim is that the way people initially see success and intelligence, should not just be the individual itself, but where and how that individual became who they were. Gladwell highlights the fact that “People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage” (19) and that outliers don’t “sprout from the earth” (269) but are made because of various factors such as age, race, where they were born, and the environment they grew up in.

What exactly is an Outlier? Malcolm Gladwell explains to his readers in "Outliers" that an Outlier are "men and women who do things out of the ordinary." Gladwell explains to us that an in order to become successful, there are many factors that can lead to it including birth dates, community and culture, and legacy. He doesn't entirely believe that you can achieve success just from individual merit and hard work but that it takes the environment around you and opportunity to become successful. In the contrary, Gladwell writes a whole chapter titled, "The 10,000-Hour Rule" which he explains that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to become successful in something. Then he mentions that it opportunity plays a part in this success, when speaking about The Beetles, and how they were giving an opportunity to play at a club for about ten thousand hours. If it wasn't for this opportunity that was given to The Beetles, Gladwell believes that they wouldn't be as who they are now and would have never been as successful and wealthy as they are now. Gladwell claims that social and economic background can determine whether or not a individual will succeed. This claim is false becaus a person who is wealthy can not be as successful as one who is not wealthy.

People may argue that Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is all about family background and family legacies. Others may say that what mattered most is the way someone are brought up and how much time and dedication they put into a skill or goal. People may also say that all of these factors are what the book focuses on in order to be successful. The book is not about family background, the “10,000 Hour-Rule”, or “Rice Paddies”. All of those encompass something very important, opportunity to actually apply those theories. The most important theory Gladwell presents is that opportunities are the key to become successful more so than the other theories.

In the book, The Outliers: The Story of Success, written by Malcom Gladwell he described an outlier as someone who does something out of the ordinary or different, something that lies outside the box. His beliefs about people being successful are easily supported. He reviews the lives of extremely successful people and how they obtained success while utilizing their social interactions, last name and distinct events that occurred throughout their life. His writing throughout the book was sturdy and powerful. Gladwell writes effectively to get his point across by using deductive organization, repetition and logos.

In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell highlights the seemingly unrelated factors that lead people to success. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Outliers, and this is owed to all the literary devices employed in the writing of this book. One of the most apparent features of the book is the tone. Gladwell keeps everything casual and conversational. This helps keep the information more digestible and engaging to read.

Outliers are far more than successful people who have created their own success stories. What we see on the outer wall are highly intelligent people with strong ambitions, however, Outliers written by Malcolm Gladwell proves this view incorrect. Gladwell takes us through examples of how some of the most successful people in the world have been influenced by cultures and communities even to parenting styles. In Outliers, the focus is not on how people flourish; instead, it’s everything that’s around them that plays a role in Gladwell’s explanation of success.

To begin with, 10,000 hours of practice is known as the minimal time to become a master in their own field. It’s important to have 10,000 hours of practice, but most of people can’t fulfill 10,000 hours of practice because they do not have an opportunity to get 10,000 hours. In the case of Outliers, Gladwell exemplifies Beatles to show the opportunity to get 10,000 hours of practice. Beatles could fulfill 10,000 hours of practice in Hamburg for an opportunity to perform for 270 nights in just over a year and a half. Consequently, the Beatles became outliers in their music. The lesson from Beatles is that people should seize an opportunity to practice 10,000 hours at their field. Otherwise, the success doesn’t approach to individuals. Therefore, the opportunity to fulfill 10,000 hours of practice challenges Gladwell’s suggestion of hard

Gladwell questions the way we make sense of success. He argues that we attribute success to individual qualities (talent, motivation, genius) but in fact success stories and successful outliers are people who are the beneficiaries of hidden advantages, extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies.

Born in Hampshire, England on September 3, 1963 to parents Joyce Gladwell and Graham Gladwell, Malcolm T. Gladwell was intrigued by the fundamental ideas of mathematics and psychology from a young age. After graduating from the University of Toronto, and accepting some not so appealing jobs, he finally landed a spot on the staff of The New Yorker. Spending time on this fast-paced journalistic endeavor and writing some out-of-the-ordinary pieces inspired Gladwell to go back to his roots, and explore the principals of psychology. In 2008, he published his third book, Outliers: A Story of Success. This novel explores the circumstances in which people are given the opportunity to be successful in their respective fields, based on their surroundings, along with personal drive, and perseverance to be the best. Gladwell wrote this novel to give his audience an in-depth explanation of the fact that people such as athletes, actors, and millionaires don’t simply become something from nothing based on luck- they must put in the work to be successful.

Through a series of different tests, Gladwell concludes that we have all too easily bought into the myth that successful people are self-made. He says people “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” Gladwell explains an outlier as a person “who doesn 't fit into our normal understanding of achievement.” According to Gladwell, great men and women are beneficiaries of specialization, collaboration, time, and place. An outlier’s recipe for success is not personally achieved through hard work, but through opportunity and time on task. I actually agree with Gladwell’s view of success. People can work their whole life towards a goal and never achieve it, but if they know of an opportunity, a legacy, or a specific way to achieve this goal more efficiently, they can be successful. Examples are children being born in the early months to be better at hockey, working on a specific task for 10,000 hours to become proficient, and proper training and excellent communication while flying an airplane.

Books are literary tools used to explain the ideas and the thoughts of an author even if those ideas are serious, entertaining or illogical. In The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, the author uses the book to portray a message about the characteristics needed to become a successful outlier. Are outliers just people who do not fit into mainstream society because they are above average? How does one become an outlier? The author not only answers lingering questions that the readers have about the title, but he also shows a way to become an outlier through various circumstances and situations. In fact, the author uses several examples to prove his point and continuously persuades the reader throughout the book. As a result, Gladwell explains that talent is not the only advantage to be an outlier, but birthdays, courses, colleges, towns, etc. are just as important in order to be successful. Therefore, the author successfully conveys his message about how true outliers are created in the competitive society by using logical facts to build up his argumentation, creating ethos and pathos for his rhetoric, and establishing a direct connection with the audience through his style of writing.

Gladwell used many anecdotes and stories to push his hypotheses. An example would be the two chapters titled “The Trouble with Geniuses Part One and The Trouble With Geniuses Part Two”. In these chapters, Gladwell introduces Chris Langan, a man with an IQ higher